Duck Dance © 1996 Doris Flueck

 
.................................
daffodils
.................................

don't remember me
in that half-hearted
daffodil way
when you told me
i was a morning glory

but the memory
betrays us all eventually
like the earth betrays us
by cluttering our graves
with stupid daffodils
to remind us that we were never
morning glorys anyway

 
.................................
twelve-years-old
.................................

they're all oogling at me
with their teethy, giddy smiles
while i accept my shining
gold-painted initiation pendant
to always remind me
of what it should mean to be
a righteous young woman

and the only thing playing
in my movie screen brain
is reruns of the last chapter i read
in my mom's book
the same book--just with different titles--
that she's let me read for years

and this solemn ceremony
just happens to be the day
i finish one of those chapters
that reminds me of the magazines
i find in my dad's drawer
and the things my cousins taught me
in the treehouse
but mom doesn't know about the treehouse

and while they recite scripture
i remember my fifth-grade teacher
showing me the verse about "the best books"--
things lovely and of good report--
after i brought mom's book to school
but i figured i knew more
about beautiful things
than she'd ever know

like how beautiful my uncle was
in the bathroom when i was four
and the cousins and the neighborhood boys
with their crude giggles and curious eyes
and the GI with his alcohol lips
and impatient hands
we all learned about beauty together
we all learn it somewhere

so here i stand with my uncle
and my sister and a magazine
and the clubhouse and the movies
and their hands and my hands
and this scrap of metal on my chest
that will tell the world i'm righteous
but i'm only twelve-years-old

.................................
lindsay jane
.................................

 
Copyright © lindsay jane
April 1997

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